What if Taiwan had joined the US as the fifty-first state after World War II? What if the 1999 Jiji earthquake had split Taiwan into four islands which each developed their own politics? These ten stories are alternate histories that each provide an imaginative mirror to Taiwan's current reality.

Cutting-edge novelist Tsai Yi-Chen re-envisions the pivotal moments in Taiwan's modern history with daring imaginative twists, producing a speculative chronology that spans a wide range of literary forms and styles. Like a visionary time-machine, this short-story collection transports readers to alternate histories that nonetheless ring true to the world we know.

Brimming with the sights and sounds of a rapidly industrializing colony, "Travels in Taiwan" is a faux travelogue written from the perspective of an Englishman visiting Taiwan under Japanese rule. "Night Flow" takes the form of a ghost story, but the strange mutterings and exotic tongues heard in the night are the grievances of those dispossessed by the transition from Japanese to Republic of China rule. In ""Please Close Your Eyes"" Taiwan becomes the fifty-first US state at the end of WWII, and a parallel post-war history of the Asia-Pacific region unfolds. A love-letter to Formosa, "Last Case" is a detective story steeped in the paranoia and tension of a 1980's authoritarian police state.

The final story, "Drifting Apart", is the bold imagining of a Taiwan split into four landmasses by the 1999 Jiji earthquake. As the islands drift apart over the following years, so do the thoughts and worldviews of their inhabitants. In an attempt to promote national unity, short stories from across these islands are compiled into a collection: the nine preceding stories of Drifting Formosa! The fictional plot device of drifting islands is a powerful metaphor for contemporary Taiwan, whose citizens struggle to reach consensus on the critical issues faced by their country.

In the classic vein of alternate history fiction, author Tsai Yi-Chen poses "what if" questions that reframe reality, constructing new perspectives on Taiwan's past, present, and future. His meticulous handling of historical sources grounds the speculative plots and fictional characters, allowing for meaningful re-interpretations of the events that forged the real Taiwan.